drinks on me
by vega-de-la-lyre
Summary: Or, The One With The Interstellar Pub Crawl. // “To any and all intoxicating beverages,” Kirk says, clinking his glass with McCoy’s. “Amen,” Christine says fervently. // Kirk/McCoy/Chapel.


warnings: lots of gore, an "aliens made us do it"-type situation of dubious consent + a little bit of voyeurism.

* * *

**one.**

* * *

Christine's fingers are slowly going numb. She's pinching off Kirk's jugular vein, because here in this dark basement they've got nothing else to stop the bleeding, no medical supplies, not a damned bandage, let alone the autosuture they need to mend his throat. He is steadily growing whiter under her hands and under the scarlet that coats his face and his chest, but at least he is still breathing and conscious —

McCoy slams a hand against the genetically-deadlocked roof hatch in frustration. "Fuck," he says, "_fuck_," and Kirk jerks his head at the sound, and fresh hot blood spurts out over Christine's fingers.

"Stop moving," she tells him tersely, pinning down his shoulder with her other hand. "You're not helping yourself."

McCoy abandons the hatch and sinks to his knees beside them, laying the communicator on the floor. "The _Enterprise_?" Christine asks softly, and he shakes his head, face grim.

"How's he doing?"

She shrugs. "Half a centimetre higher and he'd already be dead," she says. "But if we don't get him out of here soon, he'll bleed out anyway."

Kirk interrupts. "Lies, all lies. He's doing fine. And he'd like if you'd stop talking about him like he's not here."

"No talking," McCoy says. He takes Kirk's hand and grasps it tight, and though Christine knows he's doing it to reassure himself and Kirk she sees his fingers slip up to Kirk's wrist, too, to check his pulse.

Christine leans in close, just next to Kirk's face. "Next time," Christine says quietly, "can you refrain from taking it upon yourself to defend your lover's honour?"

"Especially when said lover can defend his own honour perfectly fine, thanks," McCoy adds, his thumb brushing over Kirk's. "And the other people have _knives_."

"Guys." Kirk grins and slaps his free hand against his pocket and says proudly, "Look, I totally scored us some Andorian ale. I mean, before all that shit went down."

"All that shit like _you nearly dying_, you mean," McCoy says.

"'M not dead yet," Kirk says dazedly, and he snorts, pleased with his own cleverness. "Hah. I feel fine. I think I'll go for a walk. I feel happy!"

"What," McCoy says, "are you _doing_," and Kirk shakes his head as much as he can.

"No one appreciates my references," Kirk says. He has mostly stopped bleeding now; Christine is taking it as a good sign, but she would still like it very much if he would shut up. "It's a sad and lonely thing, being this awesome. Get me a drink, it's only a flesh wound!"

"It'll just thin your blood out," Christine tells him tiredly, watching the rise and fall of his chest.

Kirk's eyes are sympathetic. "Sorry," he says, tapping her wrist. "I know I'm an asshole. But hey, at least as long as I'm talking you know I'm still alive, right?"

Christine looks at McCoy.

"It was a good night, before the throat-cutting," Kirk says thoughtfully. "I still say we put the bar on the thumbs-up list."

"You would," McCoy says.

Christine pushes her fingers deeper into the slit in his throat with a squelch, and McCoy wipes some of the blood away from Kirk's face, and they wait.

* * *

**two.**

* * *

This bar is a classic saloon-type deal, newly-built in a rough young town on a dry backwards planet. It's like stepping back in time to the American West, if the American West had a much greater variety in alcohol and was host to a significant alien population.

Christine sneezes and puts her head down on her arms. "I think I'm allergic to the sawdust," she says, sniffing. "Or maybe it's all the horses. Should've taken a shot before I came down."

"It's not so bad here, though," Kirk says. He drums his fingers on the bar. "They're well-stocked, at least."

"And they aren't all trying to _kill us_," McCoy says, glowering, and Kirk claps his back:

"Yet," he says. "They aren't trying to kill us _yet_. Give it time, the night is young, we haven't failed yet."

Christine exchanges a look with McCoy, and he shakes his head resignedly and draws a finger through some spilled beer, tracing arcane patterns on the wood.

"I've got to say, Chapel," Kirk goes on, speaking into his drink, looking up over the edge of his glass, "I kind of really love you in those civvies. You're all very — you know." He swallows and waves his hands in a rough approximation of what she guesses are her curves.

"Thank you," Christine says demurely, swinging her feet a little. She won't lie: she looks hot. "But I thought I was always very _you know_."

"Oh, always," he says with a grin, reaching up between her shoulders, trailing a hand down the nape of her neck. She shivers, and he grins wider. McCoy rolls his eyes.

The bar door swings open; the piano player thuds out an ominous chord.

McCoy only has a finger of whiskey left, and he cradles it protectively.

"Another for him, my good man," Kirk says, but the bartender isn't looking at them; he is staring over their shoulder, hands frozen in the action of wiping down a glass. Kirk snaps his fingers irritably, waving his hands in the air, but the bartender doesn't look up.

"Service in this sector," Kirk says sadly, shaking his head. Someone's spurs clank against the floor, and they hear an old-fashioned gun cocking.

"Just not what it used to be," Christine says. "Here, you can have some of mine."

She pushes her glass down the bar towards McCoy, the purple sludge sloshing up over the rim. He wrinkles his nose and watches it ripple portentously. "I appreciate the gesture, sweetheart," he says, "but I prefer that my alcohol not look like it's about to gain sentience."

"Picky picky," Christine says.

There is a delightfully messy thud of flesh-on-flesh behind them, and the fight begins.

Kirk sighs, and slams down his palm on the bar. "Bored now," he says, standing.

Christine hops off her stool and stretches. "Yep," she says over the sound of smashing glass and wood. "Me too. Let's go."

McCoy sorrowfully eyes the last of his whiskey when they turn to him expectantly. "God save me," he says, "from these impatient children," but he downs it and follows them through the brawl anyway into a cool desert night.

* * *

**three.**

* * *

As soon as they step across the threshold, Christine knows it was a mistake to come here.

"I think," McCoy says, hand tightening on hers, "that we should probably go."

The place is dark and, for all that they can see, completely empty, but there is a weighted feeling of persuasion, of seduction in the air that she doesn't trust — beneath it, there is a sickening note of lingering dread.

"Yeah," Kirk says shakily, reaching for Christine's other hand, but she finds that her tongue is tied and she cannot speak or turn away. It is a curious phenomenon; detachedly, she thinks she would like to examine it, wants to find the root of it (chemicals, hormones, drugs in the air vents, old-school hypnotism), but then her mind goes quite empty and she forgets.

A man comes forward out of the darkness; he is pale and bald, his eyes completely black, his teeth filed to jagged points. Christine knows that she shouldn't judge based on appearances or lapse into xenophobia, but at the sight of him, her stomach flips with terror.

"Welcome," he says with a slight hissing on the vowels, and she braces herself against a shudder. He holds up a cup that she hadn't seen before; "Drink. Make yourselves comfortable."

He gestures with one sharp-nailed hand, and as her eyes adjust to the darkness Christine sees a raised platform just beyond him, a dais mounded high with cushions and swathed in gauze curtains.

McCoy hisses Kirk's name warningly.

"Very," Kirk says, "ah, cozy," and he releases Christine's hand and waves off the drink but the proprietor presses it on him.

"Drink," he says. "Sit."

They do, and Kirk drinks, she doesn't know _why_ but he does, and his eyes are fixed on Christine and McCoy and she knows they're both thinking the same thing: this could be poison, this could be drugged, this could be any number of awful things.

He swallows, and lowers the cup. "Wow," he says, and then, "whoa," and he passes the cup to McCoy. McCoy looks at him questioningly but he drinks, too, and Christine wants to knock it out of his hands but she doesn't, she can't.

"Jim?" she says. His blue eyes are bright and sharp.

Kirk doesn't seem to hear her; his face relaxes and his eyelashes flutter, eyes darkening suddenly, and he leans back and pulls McCoy with him roughly, rolling on top of him in a gold-and-blue tangle, pressing him into the cushions with a wild frantic kiss.

Christine stays sitting upright on the edge of the platform, her hands clasped around her knees. The proprietor is still watching her through the curtains. He smiles; "New patrons," he says, "are few and far between these days," and she looks around and is struck with the sudden realisation that he is not the only one watching: there are more than a dozen people standing in the shadows, their alien faces both impassive and keen.

The cup is still half-full beside her on the dais.

"You should drink," he says, black eyes unreadable.

"I don't want to," she says.

He smiles. "But what did you come here for, if not to drink?" he says, and Christine finds that she is unable to answer. "Drink," the proprietor repeats, and Christine knows she shouldn't but she does anyway, and whatever-it-is, as it slides down her throat, is cold and teeth-achingly sweet.

She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand unsteadily.

Behind her, McCoy laughs, a low rumble, catches her hand and coaxes her back against the cushions with her hip pressed into Kirk's stomach. "Hey," he says, licking his lower lip, but his eyes as they flick across her face are utterly blank. He kisses her then, hard, insistent, his knee slipping between hers, and Kirk kisses her jaw, her cheek, his hand gliding up and across her breast and the feel of it is like nothing she's ever felt before, electric and hot, she gasps, nails clenching into McCoy's arm.

There are still eyes everywhere, watching them from the dark, but as Christine tugs Kirk's shirt out of the waistband of his pants and he kisses and bites his way down her throat and McCoy's hand slides up between her legs, she finds that she doesn't really care at all.

* * *

**four**.

* * *

The music here, it _pounds_.

Christine twines her arms around McCoy's neck and pulls him close. She can feel his pulse; she smoothes her palm over his skin and she can hear his heart hammering in time with hers, with the primal beat of the music. Her breath is coming in short gasps, and she closes her eyes against the throbbing lights. They're giving her a headache.

He kisses her temple. "It's okay," he whispers, his fingers pressing into her hip, and she doesn't play coy, doesn't ask what he's talking about.

Across the bar, Kirk raises his glass to her, and smiles.

* * *

**  
five.**

* * *

In the end, they figure it's true: alcohol just tastes better on the _Enterprise_. The booze from Scotty's still is vaguely flavoured with engine grease, but it's potent and sharp and tastes like home.

Christine's hair is still scorched at the tips from the fire down on Rasyl II, but her burns are healing nicely and her hands are only shaking a little, now. She grasps the glass tighter, raising it, tucking it against her chest; Kirk draws a hand down her spine and she leans into it gratefully.

"Some day," McCoy says, and Christine smiles into her glass.

"Yeah," Kirk says.

She is grateful for the soundproof walls of Kirk's ready room — and not just for the obvious reason, either; it is quiet and cool and she can almost, almost forget in here.

"To any and all intoxicating beverages," Kirk says, clinking his glass with McCoy's.

"Amen," Christine says fervently.


End file.
